Asians, ASD and Achievement
14 November 2010
Asians are defined as people from East Asian (Chinese, Japanese and
Korean), South Asian (people from the Indian subcontinent), and Southeast Asian
(the current ASEAN) origin. Asians have been rather successful. The Asian
economies are currently seen as the bright sparks of the global economy. South
Korea and Japan are currently OECD members, whereas India and China have rapidly
growing economies relatively unaffected by the global credit crisis crunch. For
ASEAN, we also experienced economic growth, spurred by a growth of trade with
other Asian partners. Our future in Asia had never been brighter.
To
examine the successes of the Asian economy, we can look into individual
economies for comparisons. The growth of Asia could be attributed to the high
level of emphasis towards optimizing conditions towards economic growth,
throughout the country. This had been particularly in the case in some Asian
economies such as Hong Kong and Singapore, as we need to find the prime examples
of Asian success through its most exceptional cases. Both are ranked in the top
10 for the list of countries, in terms of GDP (PPP) by capita. Both economies
are the prime cases of growth maximization. Both have free economies, both have
well-developed infrastructure such as airports, seaports and excellent roads,
but both are subject to a high degree of governmental intervention and guidance.
Especially in the case of Singapore, the government indirectly or directly
controls half of Singapore’s wealth.
As for the intangibles of the
economy, it cannot be objectively examined in the Asian people, as Asia indeed
works on a different system from the West. To look for objective data, I
examined at the successes of Asians in other countries.
Asian Americans
as a whole has the highest educational attainment and median household income
than the other ethnicities in the United States, for example, including the
Americans with Caucasian or European descent. More than one-fourth of Asian
Americans earned incomes above US$100,000. As for Asians living in other
countries, they also contributed to their host countries in their various ways.
It is noted that Asian enclaves include London, Vancouver and Sydney, which
happen to be the economic powers in their respective countries (United Kingdom,
Canada and Australia).
Asians have achieved great success. However, such
success has come at great cost. In the most extreme case of competition, we can
look at the case of America, where Asians are exposed to the most competition
without the benefit of mateships (Australia) or welfare systems that equalizes
individuals (Scandinavian countries).
From the Wikipedia article on
Asian Americans, as a member of this forum quoted from, on how Asians achieved
success, and of which implicitly account for the Asians’ problems in America,
other similarly competitive countries and maybe the world:
Some Asians
justify and defend their overly competitive nature and emphasis on prestigious
universities and professional jobs on the belief that due to the existence of
white privilege, Asians (as a minority) must overcompensate in order to attain
equal to or higher status than whites. East Asians also point out that due to
the bamboo ceiling, Asians need to earn more impressive credentials in order to
get managerial positions with higher pay and higher responsibilities. For
example, a white person may need to only earn a bachelor's degree from a
mediocre state university in order to get a six figure managerial position; for
the Asian, he likely needs to earn a degree from an Ivy League school. The
higher expectations placed on East Asians as a result of the model minority
stereotype carries over from academics to the workplace.
As a result,
Asians tend to do well in places where meritocracy is carried out in full form.
The current knowledge-based economies tend to reward highly educated and highly
competent workers. Hence, with increasing incidences of companies looking at
competencies in careers to aggressively pursue new economic models, Asians tend
to benefit. Now, Asia is host to most of our world’s economic growth, as well as
investment and other economic opportunities.
Speaking of which, this
reminds me of the plight of autistics, in Asia, the West and other places.
In the West, autistics (including those with Asperger’s Syndrome) have
been known to achieve great successes in different fields. We see autistics
excelling in different fields, like sports (Clay Marzo), agriculture (Temple
Grandin), linguistics (Daniel Tammet), economics (Vernon Smith) and so on.
But the social conditions in Asia are unfavorable for autistics that
reveal their conditions.
Asian countries, excluding Japan, have no
extensive welfare systems. Asia also does not have extensive human rights for
people with disabilities, as there is little need for them. Asians prefer
economic growth over equality, as seen in the case of strong one-party or
military-based rule that carries out economic reform and liberalization, with no
reforms in the political system, as prevalent in China, Japan, South Korea,
Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.
Circumstances are hard for the
autistic individual living in Asia to achieve his or her best, because of the
poor level of understanding of autism throughout Asia, relative to the West. In
addition, the intense competition amongst the billions of Asians will seem to be
detrimental to the individual upbringing and achievement to each Asian.
Some Asian autistics might have the tendency to be overly competitive.
To stand out, Asians usually not only work hard to work hard on their own side,
they have to also work hard to follow the wishes of their colleagues and
superiors. The Chinese term it as ‘guanxi’, India also has its extensive social
system that we know as ‘caste’ that brings about adherence and extensive
internal guidelines that one has to follow. Such intense competition, from the
long-standing social systems, could hurt them. Those abilities these autistics
could have used to work to improve on their skills are now channeled to deal
with competition with other individuals. Some even work on prestige and fame,
which are by themselves hollow concepts given that they are not intrinsically
beneficial for the autistic individual, who is deemed to have troubles working
with other individuals socially, let alone maintain such relationships at a
‘high’ level with a lot more expectations and requirements by the other
individuals! What a pity, what a waste! So most of those Asian autistics fail in
this social aspect, to bring out to the best of their abilities and be
recognized for what they are doing.
Except for perhaps Satoshi Taijiri
(the creator of Pokémon), Hikari Oe (musician) and Thristan Mendoza (Filipino
percussionist), there had not been autistics in Asia who create a huge impact on
society. Even that, it appears to me that Philippines and Japan are two of the
most westernized nations in Asia, followed by Singapore.
I have high
hopes for Singapore. As I tried to imply earlier, the West tends to celebrate
individual achievements. It’s not as if autistics cannot function in the East –
it just happens that the best autistic individuals in the East are ‘screwed’ by
the intense competition – it’s just that as our society adapts more and more
elements from the West, we have to reconsider our position. We have to try to
adapt to the new situation. As we celebrate more and more individualism in our
people, we will see the situation that to stand out, one just needs to be
distinctive and do his best, so that he (or she) will get the most out of his
life.
Actually it’s not in the case of Singapore, I feel that
individualism will spread throughout Asia together with globalization. It will
be eventually useful for all Asian autistics to adapt to that, and be the best
they can be.
In the very end, I hope all autistics here can challenge
the norms and to find their individual talents and gifts, to adapt to the new
changes, new societal trends and new challenges to work towards our own
individual bests.
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